A Salt Rock woman was assaulted and kidnapped after two thieves broke in through her roof early on Wednesday morning, last week.
The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, was rudely awoken at 2am when the balaclava-clad thieves broke in through her ceiling, landing on her as she slept in her bed.
“I was sleeping when I heard a loud bang and two people exploded through the ceiling straight onto my bed,” she said.
The intruders then grabbed her and assaulted her with a hammer. She believes they are the same thieves who broke into her home in May (‘Woman held hostage for cash withdrawals’, Courier, May 31).
“They said ‘we told you not to phone the police last time and that’s why we came back’,” she said.
They then emptied her handbag and took her at knife-point around the house selecting what they wanted, grabbing all her keys in the process.
As they left the house, they accidentally set off the alarm. Her security company then phoned.
“They asked if I was alright and although I had to say I was Okay as there was a knife to my throat, I signalled that I needed help,” she said.
“To my horror, there was no response,” she revealed.
Frank Labidi, director of IPSS which is her security provider, explained that the control centre reacted to the alarm and dispatched a vehicle. However, the squad car was called back after the controller mistakenly confirmed the security code which the resident gave to indicate she was in trouble.
“The controller in question confirmed the challenge code, which was the wrong challenge code and should have been an indication that something is wrong, and cancelled the armed reaction unit,” said Libidi.
The thieves then packed the car with the stolen goods and took her to draw money from an ATM in Stanger. They stopped at UShaka Mall and forced her to get out to draw money.

“I walked into the ATM area and drew money. As I walked out I heard voices and saw two security guards,” she explained.
She screamed for help and the thieves took off with the car. The vehicle was later recovered in Nonoti through the help of her sons and the tracker team’s vigilant response.
They had offloaded the stolen items from the car before abandoning it in a cane field.
The woman is extremely traumatised and cautioned residents to check their alarms and beams and make regular contact with their security service providers to ensure a positive response.
Labidi promptly dismissed the controller in question, scheduled a hearing for the second controller on duty and for a patrol officer who left the premises unguarded after the incident at the end of his shift.
“There is no denying that we failed our client in her time of need and neither can we rely on any excuse or explanation for this. For this we are sincerely apologetic and have conveyed the same to our client,” said Labidi.
“We are extremely relieved and thankful that no harm came to our client,” he concluded.
Labidi said that measures have been implemented to ensure incidents like this do not occur again.